Doses of Quiet and Doses of Noise
by Aleithria
Summary: In this, I tie up all the threads from the ending of Season 1, and delve into Toby's past, Maya's past, and what it all means for Toby's future.
1. Chapter 1

Hello everyone!

So this is my first attempt at a Listener fic, and I have had this plot bunny bouncing around in my head for a while, but I think I was kind of waiting to see how the series ended before taking a crack at it. After seeing the ending... I dunno. I have trouble saying too much bad against the series, but I really feel like it had a lot of wasted potential, and so here is my attempt to give us all a satisfying conclusion to the threads they left dangling at the end of season 1. This story will attempt to rectify all the questions about Toby's mother, her past, Toby's past, the threat that was looming over them, and even things like the disappearance of Ray and Frank in the following seasons. I hope you all enjoy!

There are a few things that I need to decide as I write more on this, since I've been struggling with exactly how to write the story... like... where to put all of the focus since there is so much information to be passed on to y'all, and I don't want to turn this all into a massive monologue telling the story. It is possible that this will be a two-part thing, but we will have to see where the story takes us.

So... for all of us who were wondering what the hell happened to the season 1 storyline...

HERE WE GO!

* * *

"He's way more excited than I would have thought," mused Michelle with a grin as she ducked out of the car and twirled her keys between her fingers. "You should have seen his face. Klein never struck me as the family type."

Toby shut the passenger side door and pulled his coat tighter around his thin frame. "Oh I saw him yesterday," he said with a smirk. "You'd have thought someone told him he was going to be an uncle." He looked around the rail yard, trying to spot the reason for their visit between the massive shipping containers. "I think he's living vicariously through you and Adam these days. It's not healthy," he chuckled.

Michelle laughed along. "He even wants me to take a few extra weeks off before my maternity leave starts. And he's already asked when the baby shower is." She motioned to her stomach. "I'm not even showing yet."

Toby slung the chain that held his badge over his head and it dropped to rest against his chest. "Well, you should take him up on that," he said, waiting until she rounded the car to walk next to him as they headed into the maze of shipping containers. "Rest up. Both you and Adam. I've never experienced it myself, but from what I understand, raising a newborn doesn't really include a lot of sleep."

Michelle gave him a sideways glanced and a smile. "So I should go someplace where I can get a years worth of sleep in a week or two?"

"A year is probably safer." The telepath shrugged, looking down an aisle between two containers. Michelle chuckled and shook her head. Toby spread his arms and smiled at her. "Why not? You haven't had a real vacation since I started at the IIB."

"I've had days off," argued the sergeant. "Besides, who will come with you to do interviews with such paranoid people?"

"Oh, Dev and I'll have fun," said Toby with a dismissive wave. "I'm only thinking- oop! There's our guy." He aimed a finger down one of the main walkways at a heavy-set and muscle-bound man. He shifted nervously in his boots and jumped when he spotted them. "He's looking particularly skittish today," Toby mused. He threw a hand in the air. "Hey! Marcus!" he called.

Toby's piercing blue gaze met Marcus' green for a split second before the large man spun on his heel and bolted away, vanishing behind the nearest shipping container.

The two stopped their approach and exchanged a look. Toby picked up his pace, breaking into a jog to peer around the edge of the container and Michelle's hand absently undoing the strap on her holster. Something in the air felt suddenly oppressive, and Michelle's body went into high-alert.

A powerful hand locked around the wrist that was on her holster and yanked it up and away, drawing a yelp from her throat. She was flung around and her back slammed into the nearest container. At the sound of his partner's cry, Toby whirled around, his hand on his gun. Michelle's breath caught in her throat. There was a point of pressure against her belly and she heard a gun cock. A large man with a crooked nose and a sneer on his lips was holding a gun on her future daughter.

"Don't move," he said evenly. She held her hands near her head and nodded slowly, keeping her mouth a thin line and refusing to flinch away from the man's intense brown gaze. He was a beast of a man, with great hulking shoulders and stubble along a thick square jaw. He looked to Toby, who had taken a few steps toward them and Michelle could see his eyes lose their focus; a tell-tale sign that he was scanning the man's mind. "Hands up, and don't move," he ordered and Toby obeyed, releasing his gun.

"Relax, man," said Toby, his voice dipping into a well-practiced calm. "We don't want anyone to get hurt here."

"What do you want?" demanded Michelle, forcing her voice to come out calm and collected.

They were both ignored. Her attacker did not take his eyes off Toby, but pursed his lips and whistled loud enough to make Michelle wince.

Two more men appeared from behind the shipping containers. Toby jumped a little, glancing quickly between them and then fixing his eyes once more on the man threatening his partner. One was lithe, with the bearing of a military man, holding a gun leveled at Toby's head. The other was thin and wiry with straw-colored hair. He carried a large duffel bag and hurried to stand behind the consultant. He wrenched his hands behind his back and Michelle could only assume he bound them there because when he moved to Toby's side, the telepath's arms didn't move. The stranger dug into the duffel and produced what looked like a syringe. Toby took a step away from him, but was reminded of his position with a gruff command from the gun-wielding man.

"Listen, you don't want to hurt us," Michelle suddenly assured the man at her front, whose eyes remained fixed on the three a few yards away. "We're with the IIB. I'm a cop."

"We're not going to hurt you," assured the wiry man with the duffel as he flicked the syringe and pushed the plunger a little until a small bit of liquid came out. He took a step toward Toby and the consultant stepped away again.

The military man on his other side pressed the barrel of the gun against his shoulder and growled at him. "On your knees."

Toby, scrunched his nose at the command, but had little choice but to obey. He glanced to the military man and then at the man in front of Michelle as though eliminating his options in his head. The man with the duffel crouched down to his level and placed his forearm under Toby's jaw, pushing his head to the side, and exposing his pale neck. "What... what are you doing?" the telepath stuttered, wobbling a little on his knees.

"Just relax," ordered the wiry man gently. He slid the needle into Toby's neck with what looked like practiced ease and pressed the plunger.

"What the hell are you doing?" Michelle demanded again, and once more, she was ignored. The reaction was almost immediate in the telepath. His head drooped a little and his eyes scrunched in what seemed to be pain. He shook his head feverishly and his entire body tensed up. After a few moments, he tipped to one side and the wiry man stuck the syringe in his mouth like a pencil. He grabbed Toby's head and shoulder, lowering him gently to the pavement where he lay still.

"Toby!" cried Michelle, silenced immediately after by the reapplication of pressure to her belly. Toby remained unmoving and silent on the ground.

The wiry man stuck the cap back on the syringe and shoved it into the duffel. He pressed two fingers to Toby's neck and checked his eyes before looking up and nodding to the military man. "It worked. We're good," he said. The military man shoved his gun back into its holster and rushed back behind the container he had appeared from, returning with what looked like a stretcher. The wiry man reached over Toby's body and unlocked what appeared to be handcuffs, releasing Toby's arms and allowing them to lay limply at his sides. The two men loaded Toby onto the stretcher and shuffled past Michelle and her captor. As they passed, the sergeant got a brief glimpse of her partner.

Sweat had broken out across his pale face and his jaw was slack. His eyes were half-open and glazed as though he were in some sort of trance. As the two vanished around a corner with the consultant, the man with the gun trained on her belly waved at someone to the side and a new man appeared in front of her. He was... different than the others. He was older with gray hair on either side of his face and a bald crown. His eyes were weary and sad and his body was pale and thin. If it wasn't for the professional way he held himself and the fierce intelligence in his eyes, Michelle might have taken him for a drug addict.

"Sorry," he whispered, pulling out a syringe of his own and flicking it a few times as the wiry man had. Michelle squirmed a little, but she dared not move too much as the hulking man grumbled at her. "We don't want you, and it won't hurt the baby," the older man promised, sliding the needle into her arm.

There was pressure suddenly on her shoulders, back, and head, having been lowered there with much more care than she would have expected. Blackness overtook her vision before their boots had even left her alone.

~ooOoo~

"I woke up a few hours later when Dev shook me awake," said Michelle, adjusting her position in the chair. "He had traced my phone when Toby and I didn't check in."

"And that was... 18 months ago now?" asked the redhead, scribbling in her notepad. Michelle nodded. "And that was the last time you or anyone else saw Special Consultant Logan?"

"Yeah," answered McClusky.

"His family never got a ransom call, or anything?" she continued, looking up at the blonde.

McClusky swallowed hard and the woman's face softened. "Uh, no. Toby doesn't really have any family, but his best friend and girlfriend never heard anything."

The woman nodded and scribbled in her notebook again. "And this... Marcus Dale. He was looked into by the previous investigation?"

Michelle nodded. "Yeah. He was someone that we always pegged as obsessively paranoid, but he was in a good position to spot all kinds of smuggling operations and did help us bust one or two, so despite how many empty claims he had of foul play, he was always taken seriously. Turns out that the last few times he called us in for an interview, he had been paid to do so. Someone offered him ten thousand dollars for each false call he made over a period of three weeks, four times total."

"Did they ever find out why someone would pay him that much for something like that?" asked the redhead, the look on her face communicating that she already knew the answer.

Michelle raised an eyebrow at the look on her face, but responded anyway. "The investigative team seemed to be of the opinion that they were using it to lull us into a false sense of security so we would be relaxed when we went to interview him and Toby would be easier to grab." The woman nodded and scribbled in her pad again. Michelle paused for a moment before speaking up. "No offense, but why are you asking me these questions instead of the investigative team? I wasn't allowed to investigate my partner's disappearance."

The redhead smiled at her over the rim of her thin glasses. "Sergent McClusky, you were a brilliant detective even before you became part of Klein's group, and then proceeded to retain the highest rate of case closure this department has ever seen. I figured you'd have some good insight into all this, whether you were on the team or not." Michelle gave a modest smile. "What about the four men that attacked you and Special Consultant Logan?" the woman asked, abruptly switching topics.

Michelle took a moment to answer, and when she did, it was distracted. "I gave the descriptions to a sketch artist, but I never really heard whether they had been identified or not." The redhead nodded and continued writing for a moment before Michelle leaned forward in her chair and leaned on her knees. "Miss Ballard..." the woman looked up from her notepad. "It's been a year and a half, and I've told this story so many times I've lost count. Has... are they re-opening the investigation? And if they are, why is Guns and Gangs involved?"

The woman stared at her for a long moment, her eyes locked with McClusky's as though trying to come to a decision. After a moment, she put down her pen and leaned forward to match the sergeant's posture. "I can't tell you much... obviously, this is an ongoing investigation and it involves an undercover agent. I don't want to get your hopes up... but we are re-opening the investigation because there is a possibility that Special Consultant Logan is alive."

Michelle's eyes widened and she fought the grin that threatened to curve her mouth, as though if she allowed herself any tiny amount of celebration, she would be setting herself up to be crushed in such a cold case. "Can... can you tell me why you think that?"

Anna considered the question for a moment and then sighed. "The only thing I can say is that we've heard chatter that there is someone being held under a code name, whose length of time as a prisoner and physical description matches Special Consultant Logan. We don't know for sure if it is really him, but if it is him... he is an IIB asset and we will do everything we can to find him and bring him home"

Michelle fought at the smile again. She had always held out hope that Toby was alive, though the average case like this would say he wasn't, and hadn't been for some time. Before she could stop herself, she asked, "Code name? What code name?" She wasn't entirely sure why she asked, and she was a little shocked when the woman answered.

"They call him the Listener."

* * *

Let me know what you guys think! Any theories on where this is going? Any thoughts? Wishes? Stuff of that nature? See you guys soon!


	2. Update

Hey everyone!

This chapter will be replaced with the new one soon, but I thought I would give you all an update since the new chapter is taking a while to come out. Basically, I have developed Carpal tunnel in both my wrists because of my work and it has made typing fairly difficult and somewhat painful, so the chapter was going to be slow-going anyway, lol

However! I have not by any means given up on this story. I have, actually, two different versions of chapter 2 started, but I am fighting myself on which direction to go. I could stick with Michelle and Dev and Oz and Tia, or I could switch over to Toby's perils. I am leaning heavily on focusing on Toby for chapter two but I am struggling with exactly _how_ to write this story more than I have any other (and in 13 years of writing, that is saying something). Exactly how to present this story is proving difficult. I think I am going to write it as mostly from Michelle and group's perspective with snippets of Toby's world, but figuring out where to put snippets of Toby is difficult. But, I will hopefully have chapter two up soon!

This story has my brain extremely excited because I have managed to create a timeline that ties up every loose end I could find from season one, and I am so looking forward to sharing it with you all!

Let me know if you have any thoughts or concerns, either in the review box or in a PM and I will see you soon! :D


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